Product Development: Handheld Inspection Devices for Fire Departments

In 2001, Firehouse Software, at the time a privately held company in Des Moines, Iowa (now at http://www.firehousesoftware.com) was looking to expand the company’s product line. The company was the market leader in fire incident reporting software for fire departments. But the company wanted to grow revenues even further, so they hired Martin Technical Research to test the feasibility of eight different new product ideas.

After interviewing 150 fire departments across the United States, we determined the most attractive new product option for the company.  It was a handheld device for capturing field data during fire safety inspections at industrial sites, that could then easily download into the primary Firehouse Software program.
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Marketing recommendations included two pricing options for this new product, dependent upon Firehouse’s overall management strategy:
  • a higher “American” price for maximizing product margins.
  • or a lower “Japanese” price for optimizing the company’s market share.

Results:  Firehouse was able to diversify its product line.
In 2005, ACS Government Systems acquired Visionary Systems/Firehouse Software for $16.5M.  Then in 2009, Xerox acquired ACS and the Firehouse Software product line.